HHS secretary asks insurer to justify rate hike

Well it's starting! Yep good thing that nobody wanted to sign a health care bill, now we get the really good work over from the good old back slapping fellas at the insurance companies, Thanks everyone. I'm glad you wanted yours and everyone else's health insurance to go up 35 percent. Got anymore bright ideas? Do you think that your employer will go along with this, omg I don't think so. Yes yes less government! Yes yes more money out the poop shoot. Sure am glad you fellas know what your talking about, I told ya as soon as the insurance companies knew that they were going to be the "toughest" kids on the block they would raise rates.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/HHS-secre ... 4.html?x=0

Hey look some of the majors insures almost didn't make any money this last year, what are they going to do poor chaps.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Health-in ... l?x=0&.v=2

'Splain to me just how it was going to be different when the great one had gotten his health care bill through and mandated that folks would be required to pay these same health insurance companies or face fines?

The people in DC need to all be fired and sent packing.

What is money?

Where does it come from?

What is something worth, i.e. how do we determine its value?

Answer me these questions three......

Black_And_Blue wrote:What is money?

Where does it come from?

What is something worth, i.e. how do we determine its value?

It's like pornography, I can't define it but i know it when I see it.

It comes from our father who art in Washington.

Its value is what I am willing to pay.

Fiat money is exactly like pornography.....the more you see of it the less value you will place in it.

Does this sound familiar :

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about " a public debt being a public blessing" ; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the alignment of commerce, manufacturers, and agriculture.

This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams....

If the debt which the banking companies owe be a blessing to anybody, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing a solid interest of eight or ten per cent on it.

As to the public, these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which, before their institution, we had without interest, which never could have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it shall vanish into air...

We are warranted, then, in affirming that this parody on the principle of 'a public debt being a public blessing,' and its mutation into the blessing of private instead of public debts, is as ridiculous as the original principle itself.

In both cases, the truth is, that capital may be produced by industry, and accumulated by economy; but jugglers only will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper."

--Thomas Jefferson 1816

Obama wants coverage for pre-existing conditions. OK - Can I NOT have or pay for collision insurance on my car, wait until I have an accident, then get coverage and have my car fixed? Of course not. Why should health insurance be any different? I'm no fan of insurance companies BUT they are a business AND are entitled to operate at a profit. They do this by estimating the cost to cover a single person knowing some people will cost more than they take in in premiums, some will cost less. The difference is gross profit. Tell them they can no longer use conventional actuarial tables to forecast, because NOW they will have to cover pre-existing conditions and what choice do they have but to raise premiums to cover this unknown?. (Hi Mr insurer, I never paid you a premium before, but I just found out I have cancer and my treatment is going to cost about $250,000. Here's my 12,000 annual premium, please cover the rest of my expenses).

These policies are proposed by an academic WITH NO REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE. God help us for the next 3 years.

jeromemsn wrote:I told ya as soon as the insurance companies knew that they were going to be the "toughest" kids on the block they would raise rates.

They never lost that title, both the analysis from the CBO and the HHS estimated that the healthcare bill would have no effect on the rates. Matter of fact the HHS suggested they would increase. That was based on projected costs too, not current costs.

If either analysis was correct the bill did nothing for the common ratepayer. That rate increase happens with or without the bill.

The H.C. bill is a parlor trick on the weak minded.

Another promissory note on which cannot be delivered.

Well If I understand what your all saying then the final outcome would be, "We be ducked" hey this is simple.
Insurance companies can say no because you have a preexisting condition so no insurance. Insurance companies can raise there rates because of actuaries that show what you might cost them to keep you alive. (well you poor folk best hide. And you poor folk that have preexisting conditions you better plan your estate)
You know whats funny is that all of us except the elite few will have both of these problems creep up during our lives. And at some point even the elite will have at least one of them.
I still remember seeing the guy that played Darrin Stevens on Bewitched (Dick York) living like a very poor man inhaling air to stay alive, little bitty house. Good to know that at some point before we all die we will all be in about the same boat. And just think what a good service you have provided for your kids and grandkids they all get to keep paying rates that will continue to shoot through the roof because of actuaries. Actuaries have made the insurance companies rich this year. Funny how the insurance companies and the banks are making money but need bailed out.
I'm with ya now, hell I'm 52 my actuary is about up and somebody else will be paying the companies bill, like my girl she will love to pay these rates. I'm sure your children and grandkids will as well.

Ok, I'll play out the socialist end game for you.

List for us your contributions to the great society so that we may calculate your benefits.

....it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly appointed board, just as he might come before the income tax commissioner. And say every five years or seven years – just put them there and say – Sir, or Madam, will you be kind enough to justify your existence. If you’re not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more then clearly we can not use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive because your life does not benefit us and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

George Bernard Shaw
Fabian Socialist

Jeromesman. The gov. has shown in all things they are more inefficient then private business. What makes you think HC will be cheaper to the people when gov. runs it and mandates it? The gov. runs on OUR money and they have no incentive or motivation to do it cheaper or efficiently. If insurance co. don't make money, they go out of business, period. The gov. just prints some more or raises taxes. Or cuts services, see death panels along the lines of the George Bernard Shaw quote above. You give no solutions, you just rave about the need for "the gov" to get bigger and bigger and "giving" things to people. Move to one of the Socialist countries for some first hand experience. Or just stay here, we are going to get that experience I think.

Kevin

Do some research on France for instance, in the near past.

Rate hikes don`t surprise me a bit, I didn`t think it would be this soon. I posted elsewhere that big Ins. has been spending over a million a day fighting reform for your & my benifit. Did you really think they were going to spend their money?

Forgot to mention last weeks story :

A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/108747/next-in-line-for-a-bailout-social-security?mod=fidelity-readytoretire

The wheels are coming off the Ponzi Train of Fail.

Boy! Just think of where we would be if Bush was allowed to fix S.S. for us. That would have turned out real well.